Fading Angel
by Moon Jaguar
Summary: Misa says goodbye to Hideki Ryuga Post-Death Note, spoilers for Volume 13 HTR. First published November 2007.


**Summary:** Misa says goodbye to an old friend.

**Note: **Originally posted November 2007.

**Warnings: **Bad swears, sappiness and impending doom.

**Pairings: **Misa Amane/Hideki Ryuga, Misa Amane/Light Yagami.

**Spoilers: **All chapters and episodes of the manga and anime, including Volume 13: How to Read.

**Disclaimers:** Death Note is the paper baby of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata; Shueisha/Shonen Jump, Viz and all other past, present and current rights holders. I made no money off this'n.

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**February 13, 2011**

Misa squirms from his grip. "Go away! I'm not in the mood!" Her glare today is a shimmering blue seen in swimming pools. Yesterday her eyes were bottle green. The contacts are zero-power, for looks only. About six years ago Misa's visual acuity had suddenly changed from 20/30 to 20/8 for no medically explainable reason.

He lets go of her and drops to his haunches in a catcher's crouch. He peers at her through his long bangs, looking up at her. _God, she's beautiful, she's still got it_. She wears the extra pounds well, rounding out and accenting her curves. Otherwise little has changed about her through the years he's known her, she doesn't look a day over spring eighteen. A recent therm, touch-up and tint renders her hair a smooth, shining white-gold cascade just like in an ad for a shampoo that in reality did nothing but leave sticky crud on your hair. She's got makeup on and is wearing a simple black tank dress and striped stockings. He misses her loligoth lacy things of old but that look petered out into passe three years ago. He's glad to see her look nice, she's been letting herself go, going around in baggy old clothes, no makeup, skin greasy and her hair a dry yellow fright wig with black roots. He cracks a smile full of even white teeth that cost him a fortune in bleaching, crowns and a set of "invisible" braces.

"You look--"

Misa narrows her eyes and sets her jaw. "Get off the floor." _He thinks he's being cute. He looks like that horrible monkey boy Ryuzaki when he does that_. Ryuga Hideki rocks back and loses his balance, skinny ass hitting the floor with a small thump.

"Why, Misa?" Still grinning, still peering through his carefully spiked, mussed, tousled, lightened and tinted hair falling over one eye. She turns away from him, picks up the remote and turns on the TV. She kneels on the couch like a little girl and flips through channels idly. Hideki's grin falls away. He slowly gets to his feet, unfolding his 191-centimeter frame, all elbows-and-knees awkward like a grasshopper. She does not look at him but allows him to sit next to her.

Allows him, in his own apartment? Christ, why does he let her do this? He's not very bright, has known that all his life, but even he knew that he should send her home, let her go. _I can find somebody else. I should find somebody else. Fuck this, fuck her and fuck Yagami Light to hell and back_. She wasted too many years on that guy who used her and didn't give a crap about her. He remembers her delighted squeals at His brief and infrequent phone calls, remembers her having a cow on the set of _Spring Eighteen_ over the screen kiss because of Him, her knight named Light. So tiny, so sweet-looking in that angel get-up, ball-busting left and right while that weird little manager Matsui looked like he'd rather be somewhere else. Matsui bought it that day, fell to his death doing balance beam tricks on a balcony while drunk, landed splatted on the street in that crappy little suit of his.

He takes this because he loves her, has been in love with her for far too many years. Shit, he's going to be thirty in a few months... it's been about nine years since they met on the set of yet another sappy movie or TV show that ran together with all the rest. They'd dated off and on, out of the public eye, he and girlishly cute, in-love-with-love Misa who loved to cry at sappy moves. Misa dropped Hideki like a bad habit when Light strolled in, all preppy, starched and unsmiling. Hideki tells himself he's glad He's dead. He had wished Him dead years ago but in truth, the horrible, painful way that kid went was something even a little stuck-up prick like Yagami didn't deserve.

"Misa?" Hideki tries again. "I love you. Don't go, please stay. With me. Please, Misa, come back?"

Misa shuts off the TV and takes Hideki's large hand in her two tiny ones. "Misa knows Hideki is sad and Misa loves Hideki for being so sweet to her." Her voice softens to a wisp as she says, "Misa's heart still belongs to Light. The world is dark and terrible without him."

"It'll get better, Misa, please, let me... I'll try to help. I want to."

Misa hugs him. _He sounds so much like Matsuu when he talks this way! Except Matsuu has a squeaky voice and Hideki has a nice smooth voice, but this is so like something Matsuu would say_. She misses Matsuu, maybe she should call him, he always leaves messages on her voice mail asking how she is. No. Not with what she has to do.

"Misa loves Hideki very much. Please don't be sad tomorrow." She kisses him on the cheek, picks up her purse, and strolls to the _genkan_. Hideki gets up and helps her lace her boots. Hideki stomps into his, leaving them unlaced, and kisses her at the door. Though he isn't crying, his kisses taste like tears. Misa walks without looking back, singing faintly-- but not in the clear soprano on her latest recordings that reviewers compare to the blonde ABBA lady. Her voice is faint and husky, uncertain, wavering, ghostly.

"_Ki wo tsukete--  
Kami-sama wa miteru..._"

Ryuga Hideki watches Amane Misa lose herself in a crowd. _Don't be sad tomorrow? Why would I be sad? Tomorrow's Valentine's Day_.


End file.
